The return of touch typing

LeADING schools are putting touch typing on the timetable to make pupils more employable.

It may have been a skill previously limited to clerks and secretaries, but touch typing is now being taught at Brighton College. eton is also said to be giving classes.

Pupils aged 13 and 14 at Brighton College are being taught how to type at up to 70 words a minute without looking down by New Zealand expert June Perry. Her method promises to eradicate slow typing in just a few hours, but it does require pupils to memorise the keyboard.

Leah Hamblett, deputy head, said: ‘The vast majority of our pupils will go on to university and then to a job that will require them to type. Why not give them the skill so that it is second nature?’

Touch typing is already being taught in many foreign schools.

Since 2016, Finnish schools were required by law to teach the skill.